Cyclists in slow lane for safety

What Katy Bourne and many other motorists with little or no experience of cycling fail to understand is that the consequences of breaking the law of the roads are massively asymmetrical. When a motorised vehicle is in collision with a bicycle, almost always the cyclist is injured or killed, irrespective of who is at fault. I absolutely do not condone cyclists breaking the law, but when they do so, they are merely putting themselves at risk. When a motorist breaks the law, they are putting others at risk.

Far too little is being done by those, like Katy Bourne, in a position of power and influence to make our roads a safer environment for cyclists, even though she does at least acknowledge both the health and environmental benefits.

Our authorities have fast tracked the expenditure of hundreds of millions of pounds on a dubious link road between Hastings and Bexhill, yet will have taken more than ten years to spend a tiny fraction of this cost to create the Rye Harbour cycle route following the death of Graham Matthews in 2004, and even then there is no continuation through or across the junction with Winchelsea Road. This is not good enough.

Dominic Manning

Chair, Rother Environmental Group